How does this all work in practice?
CJSART assessments, as well as most modern Rule of Law or Justice
Sector reviews, frequently arise because of a need to address an apparent
problem, or to provide responses to policy makers or to adjust
programmatic priorities in the wake of budgetary or priority shifts. The
focus of the CJSART expert is to collect data using a rigorous, defined
and replicable framework categorized in a prearranged system. Once the
country data is collected and catalogued it can then be analyzed out of
country; applying such intelligence, contextual guidance, demographic
facts, local insight or diplomatic priorities as needed.
At the outset, CJSART experts need to remind themselves that their
evaluations are primarily focused on a country’s criminal justice sector.
Unlike more narrow reviews and audits fashioned to focus on a aspects
of a particular government program or donor project, the CJSART
interdisciplinary assessment is designed to assess and help to analyze
the interlocking key components of the criminal justice sector, their
integral procedures and how well (or poorly) they work together to ensure
a responsive, just and transparent system. Because the rigor of CJSART
is in part dependent on its holistic approach, eliminating key
components from an assessment can have an eroding effect on the
usability of its findings. As tempting as it can be to focus on more
familiar programmatic mechanisms, it is important that the assessment
team keep the holistic, country-level methodology in mind.
From the perspective of the CJSART expert assessor (interdisciplinary
experts in the areas of Laws, Judicial Institutions, Law Enforcement,
Border Security and Prisons), the operation of the Tool takes place in
three stages:
•
•
•
Pre-visitation administration and country research;
Visitation and the in-country assessment; and,
Final analysis, quantification and editing of the analytical country
report.
During each of these phases the interdisciplinary CJSART criminal
justice sector experts will be assisted and guided by the Team Leader
and/or a CJSART Tool Administrator from the Bureau for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
The first stage, pre-visitation, begins with the initial tasking by a country
or functional bureau policy maker. The initial tasking can precede the
actual visitation stage by as much as six months, but the norm is closer
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